Life in the fast lane! I'm taking life one day at a time and doing my best to keep an attitude of gratitude for my (many) blessings! Life throws us unexpected curve balls and it's up to us to decide how to react to each one. We may need to adjust to a "new normal" on a regular basis!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I am allergic to our bed

I discovered it quite by chance, only recently making the connection between our bed and the cough because of a series of events.

I had been bothered with a nagging cough for months and months. Someone told me about using Vick’s VapoRub on the soles of my feet, followed by socks, at bedtime. This worked very well and as mysteriously as the cough appeared, it went away. I just attributed it to a bug that I had gotten as I’d had several bouts of upper respiratory infections.

The cough as just as suddenly reappeared and this time I’ve not had any illness to tie to it, but I do have a “bed” connection.

In October 2005 we purchased a “Tempur-pedic” style king sized bed. For a while I slept very well on it and then I started coughing. Like I said, I’d been sick so I figured it was due to a hold over from the viruses I’d had.

In August 2007 we sold our home in preparation for moving into the handicap accessible house we were building. For the first couple of weeks we stayed at Amy’s house and slept on her Tempur-pedic bed. I coughed the whole time I we stayed there. For the next three months we lived in a furnished apartment and the bed was a normal, hotel-style mattress. After a short period of time the coughing stopped.

We moved into our new house in December 2007 and shortly afterwards I started coughing again. I still thought I was having problems with an ongoing virus and had been to the doctor more than once for medication.

I spent a couple of weeks in a different bedroom and the coughing stopped. I’m now back to sleeping on the king sized bed and I’ve been coughing for several nights.

My next step is to get a baby monitor so I can hear when Ron needs me and go back to sleeping in the spare bedroom. If I can’t hear on the monitor (since I’m deaf in one ear) I’ll sleep on the sofa as many nights as I can stand and then back in the bed until the coughing starts up again. I’ll repeat the process as often as necessary.

I’m praying for God to provide new beds for our house since it’s pretty obvious we need them. And, in the meantime, I’m thinking about buying stock in Vick’s VapoRub!